Study Break
by alecsangryface
Summary: Magnus needs to study but he's easily distracted. Pure fluff
**Study Break**

 **A/N: Written for 500 followers on my tumblr alecsangryface (self-promoHYPE) I hope y'all enjoy and forgive me for all the American college inaccuracies.**

Magnus wasn't terribly fond of the library. He had nothing against them, in fact he loved obvious artistry of the one on his college campus and he was very appreciative of the amount of money it saved him when he could just borrow a book instead of paying hundreds of dollars for it, but he _hated_ having to use reference books. They forced him to sit in uncomfortable red plastic chairs in silence for however long it took him to get what he needed for an assignment, and those assignments always seemed to take longer.

So doing his latest assignment was not what he wanted to be doing at all. Of course he was very grateful that he didn't have exams like the rest of the school, but he was positive he had it much worse because he had to pour over old tomes that _did not_ smell nice at all and deal with a librarian that was most likely as old as the book herself hovering over his shoulder every two minutes "just in case dear."

After flicking though the pages for half an hour, recording references and writing down interesting but probably useless factoids, Magnus was starting to get restless. He started tapping his pen and letting his eyes wander over the masses of books and the stressed college students that were pulling at their hair and head desking hard. But his eyes ended up settling on only one of them

Magnus completely ignored the book he was supposed to be studying in favour of studying the boy sat a few seats down and across the table from him. It seemed that everyone had given him a rather wide berth of space because his stuff was everywhere. The tables in the library would easily fit five or six people, but this boy had managed to make it look like he needed every inch of space he could get. There were at least three different text books open in front of him, papers of what looked like diagrams strewn about next to and underneath them. He had notecards that were obnoxiously highlighted and ring bound set out but left untouched and a multitude of pens scattered about on top of everything else.

The boy himself was oddly intriguing to Magnus too, and not just because of his issues with space. It was obvious that despite taking up space with his study materials, he was not comfortable taking up space himself. His shoulders were hunched and his elbows were tucked into his sides. Yet, he was running the fingertips of one hand over every cell of the other, softly mouthing words as he went. Magnus could have spent hour watching those hands tracing skin and bone. He could have spent hours looking at this obviously beautiful person who was so obviously unaware of it.

Magnus was jarred out of his observation by the violent vibrating of his phone on the table. It made many head snap up to glare at him, including the cute boy. He snatched it up and nervously smiled at the boy, who just continued to glare at him until he answered his phone.

"Cat, I'm in the library. What do you want?" Magnus whispered, he rolled his eyes at the glares sent his way and stood from the table so that he could go to an empty seminar room that he could actually speak in.

"I wanted to remind you about dinner tonight" Cat replied. She sounded busy as always, not even bothering to make a comment about him actually being in a library for a change. "You promised that you would come out with us as one final hurrah before exams start"

"Of course I'll be there. You sound busy?" Magnus commented with a raised brow as he heard loud noises coming from behind Catarina. She let out a long suffering sigh.

"I'm at the hospital. I would really like to be studying right now though, which incidentally is what you should be doing" She paused long enough for him to groan, "I'll get Raphael to text you the details. See you later lovely"

Magnus muttered a goodbye and hung up. If Catarina said he had to do some work then he would, if for nothing else but that she always made him feel bad for coasting. Cat volunteered a large number of hours in the local hospital on top of being a medical student and still made time to socialise. Magnus had almost convinced himself that she had a time-turner.

He made his way back out to where he had left his things, only briefly worrying about what he would do if someone stole his laptop. As he passed the boy he had been watching, he noticed that he was also a medical student; if the various anatomical diagrams were anything to go by. Smart and sexy, it was something Magnus could get behind… or under.

Magnus managed another ten minutes of reading before he was back to staring at the medicine boy. He couldn't help himself. The boy had discarded his very ugly (if Magnus said so himself) sweater at some point and now Magnus was too busy following the disjointed pattern of tattoos that littered his arms. There was an inordinate amount of greens and blacks, so much so that anyone with worse eyesight than Magnus would have only seen that and not the intricate details of each little tattoo that made up his sleeve.

"Can you stop staring? It's making it difficult to focus" The boy hadn't even moved to look at Magnus, but he was quite clearly speaking to him. Magnus floundered for a second.

"What's your name?" He whispered back. There was something different about this boy and dammit if Magnus wasn't curious enough to want to find out what it was.

"Alec" The response was sharp and he, _Alec_ , still hadn't looked up. Magnus was only slightly frustrated.

"What are you studying?" Magnus knew already, but he wanted to keep talking to Alec so he went for an easy starter. Although it seemed like it was unappreciated by the way Alec had rolled his eyes hard enough for it to carry through his whole body.

"Anatomy"

"I could help you with anatomy" Magnus replied with the hope that Alec understood the heavy implication he was making.

Alec snorted. Magnus pouted, even he would admit that it wasn't the best chat up line he had ever used but he certainly didn't enjoy being laughed at.

"Unless you let me cut you open to look at your nerve cells under a microscope, I don't think you're going to be much help" Alec replied. One of his hands dropped so that his fingers could follow the words he was reading, and he finally looked up with a raised brow and an almost smirk that spoke to his obvious amusement.

"Alright. I just got a new set of knifes, they're back at my place if you want to?" Magnus waggled his eyebrows in what he hoped was a way that would convince Alec to go with him. Alec sighed and it sounded so much like the ones Catarina would let out that he had war flashbacks.

"Believe me as much as I want to, and I do want to, I have a lot of material to go over" He waved his free hand over the various things laid out in front of him.

Magnus huffed and turned back to his work. He briefly wondered if he was losing his charm if he couldn't even get a date at the library of all places. It wasn't a thought that took hold though, he was Magnus Bane, and he could dates anywhere.

"Maybe me, you and your set of knives can spend an evening together after finals?" Alec said having turned back to his own paper but causing Magnus' head to whip back around to gape at him. Alec looked smug long enough to think about what he had said.

"I didn't mean that" He hastily added before Magnus could start speaking again, "I just meant that you said something about knives and I thought that it would be smooth and I don't want to cut you open. You're just very beautiful and funny and I don't normally do this and" He made a noise as he shut himself up. Magnus watched on amusedly as Alec went bright red.

"I'm not a serial killer. I promise" Alec sheepishly looked back down at his books and began picking at the edge of one of his lose papers.

"What if serial killers turn me on?" He whispered. It took everything in him to not laugh out loud when he saw Alec's answering blush and smile, "How about next Saturday? My roommates will be out, or at least they will be if I ask them too"

Alec smiled at him and nodded almost unnoticeably, Magnus was taking in his every move so he noticed. Then Alec pulled a phone from his pocket and slid it across the table so it stopped maybe five inches away from one of Magnus' hands. When Magnus sent it back, it was with a bit too much vigour and the phone would have toppled off the side and onto the floor if Alec hadn't caught it.

"Can I study in peace now?" Alec asked. But he was smiling so Magnus didn't take it to heart.

They both settled back into another agonising hour of study, but it wasn't so bad now that they had something to look forward to.


End file.
